five moments in a friendship
by sciencekitty
Summary: the good, the bad and the in-between. in no particular order, five moments in Maureen and Collins' friendship.


_**one**_

"What was _that_?"

He leans against the doorframe of the ornately decorated room and watches as she paces across the hardwood floor like a caged animal. Her muscles are tense, body wired for attack, and she purposely ignores his question.

"She's totally unreasonable!"

The heated announcement, made complete with arms thrown melodramatically into the air, causes Collins' eyebrows to climb into his hairline.

"Yeah," he agrees dryly, "expecting you to refrain from flirting with another woman at your own engagement party. Damn. That's _crazy_."

That stops her in her tracks. Angry dark eyes pin him where he stands, and he fleetingly thinks that maybe it would have been better to give her time to calm down before trying to talk some sense into her.

"_Excuse me_?" Maureen's eyes go wide with disbelief. "I was just being _friendly_ and she goes and freaks out because I won't let her control me, and –"

"She loves you," Collins interrupts.

Maureen snorts. Hands on her hips, she laughs awkwardly.

"Great, and that means I can't ever ask someone else about the necklace she's wearing?"

He sighs and watches as she walks over to him, waiting expectantly for a response. He waits until she gets close before repeating, "She loves you."

Maureen rolls her eyes and leans against the other side of the doorway, matching his posture. "Yeah, you said that already."

Collins takes a breath, licks his lips.

"Stop trying to chase her away," he says finally, "One of these times, she'll actually go."

Maureen's shoulders fall the tiniest bit as the wind goes out of her sails, and he knows he hit a nerve. He's quiet while she studies his face for a long moment before pushing herself off of the doorframe.

"Fuck you," she whispers quietly.

He watches as she stalks away, leaving him behind.

_**two**_

It's two in the morning when the call Maureen's been expecting finally comes. She's been staying on the couch in the loft since her breakup with Joanne, so she manages to grab the phone before the ringing has a chance to wake anyone else. At least she hopes so.

"Hello?" she asks expectantly, and the line is silent for nearly a full minute before the warmth of Collins' familiar voice fills her ear.

"He's gone."

His wobbly statement tears at her heart and she whispers that she'll be there as soon as possible before gingerly hanging up the phone.

Roger chooses that moment to stumble out of his bedroom, sleepy and disheveled. He squints at her and asks with a yawn, "who was that?"

"Hot date," she replies with a dazzling, albeit fake, smile.

"_Now?_" he asks skeptically, "it's the middle of the night."

"Would you want to wait until morning for _this_?" Maureen asks pointedly, standing and gesturing to the length of her body. She hopes he doesn't notice that she's wearing sweats.

The expression on Roger's face tells her he's too disgusted to even reply, and he waves a dismissive hand at her before heading back to bed. She waits until she hears the latch on his bedroom door click before she throws on a coat and shoes and hurries out the front door.

Collins is sitting in the middle of his bed when Maureen tentatively lets herself into the bedroom. His back is against the headboard and he's surrounded by pictures of Angel and bottles of half-drunk alcohol. She opens her mouth to speak, but he beats her to it, holding up a candid photo for her to look at. She recognizes it as a shot from New Year's Eve. Angel, in costume and looking as flawless as ever, was grinning ear to ear at something or someone beyond the reach of the camera. Maureen feels a lump in her throat forming as she takes the photo and reverently brushes her thumb over her friend's face, as if Angel could somehow feel her touch.

"My woman," Collins says proudly, smiling through his tears, "she was _fierce._"

Without another second's hesitation, Maureen climbs onto the bed beside Collins and gathers him into a tight hug. Tears soak into her shoulder, and she can think of nothing else to say except the truth.

"She was beautiful."

_**three**_

She's so used to being ignored that she doesn't even think twice before handing him a beer, her sleeve riding up slightly with the movement. His eyes narrow and before she has a chance to react, he's got her wrist in his big hand and he's gently pushing up the fabric covering the worst of it. There's five finger shaped bruises that start a half inch under her palm and he looks up at her, waiting for an explanation. She stares back defiantly. Collins knows that Mark would never lay a hand on anyone, especially her, so she waits for him to put the pieces together on his own.

"Roger"

It's a statement of fact that she doesn't even try to deny, and shrugs it off instead.

"We had it out."

"Mmmm," he says. The way he's watching her is unnerving, like he's expecting her to have some big dramatic reaction and she feels the sudden urge to reassure him. She considers laughing it off, all _you should see the other guy_, but she doesn't really have it in her.

She'd been exhausted, having just come off a double shift at Life, only to go back to the loft to find Roger yelling at Mark in one of his withdrawal-induced rages. Predictably, Mark was busy pleading with his best friend to calm down. She'd stupidly inserted herself between them and told Roger off, only to have him grab her wrist and yank. In a split second, her back was against his chest and her arm was twisted up painfully between them. His fingers dug into her skin and she had felt a flash of fear as he leaned down and growled harshly into her ear.

"Just _shut up_. For once in your god damned life, _mind your own fucking business."_

In a panic, she had stomped down hard on his foot and then threw an elbow at his nose, causing him to let out a howl of pain when it immediately began spurting blood. The relief she felt at getting him away from her was short-lived, though. Running to his friend's aid, Mark had shot her a look that made it perfectly clear that he considered the whole situation her fault. It didn't matter that she had been trying to defend _him_. Once again, she'd apparently provoked Roger through her crime of simply existing.

"We have to be understanding," Mark had said to her afterward, "withdrawal is painful. He wasn't in his right mind!"

Maureen sighs. Collins is still watching her, nursing his beer patiently.

"It's not that big a deal," she says, more than a little defensively. "Mark got him into a rehab program, so this," she holds her wrist up, "was a one-time thing."

Collins clears his throat.

"You make him regret it?"

She cracks a smile at that. "Almost broke his nose."

He nods, proud. "_That's_ my girl."

_**four**_

Maureen meets him, as requested, at a small café that he's already forgotten the name of. Nearly late, she's a whirlwind of curls and apologies as she slides into the chair across from him and grins.

"So, what's with all the secrecy? The guys would love to see you now that you're back. And why didn't you want to go to Life? I didn't even know this place existed."

She pauses and looks around. "Where's your man?"

"Matt is," Collins stops, trying to think of the right way to put it. He licks his lips and considers his choice of words, "…gone."

She gives him a funny look. "What do you mean gone? Gone like you split up?"

He feels dread collecting in the bottom of his stomach and wipes his sweaty palms on his pants. He has no idea how this is going to go and suddenly he's regretting deciding to tell her.

"Not exactly."

Her eyebrows knit together like she's trying to put together pieces of a puzzle, and rather than actually having to say the words, he takes a different approach. Collins reaches into his coat pocket for his brand new bottle of pills and carefully places it on the table in front of her, then pushes it forward silently. She reaches for it and he watches while she reads the small print. All the color drains from her face.

"You?"

He nods and she gasps.

"Did Matt do this? I'm going to kill him."

Collins smiles ruefully. "No you're not. He didn't know until he got a cold he couldn't shake."

She closes her eyes, braces herself, and then opens them again.

"How is he?"

Collins is grateful for the genuine sincerity in her voice, but he knows if he gets into the whole story, he'll start crying in the coffee shop and he's not sure he'd be able to stop. Instead, he swallows the lump in his throat and tells her the truth.

"I don't know, he won't let me see him."

She reaches across the table for his hands and grips them tightly. There are tears in her eyes, but her expression is determined.

"You're gonna be okay. You're gonna beat it, you'll see."

Later they walk toward the subway together, and before they head off in the opposite directions, Maureen envelopes him in a fierce hug.

"I won't say anything to the guys," she says reassuringly into his ear, "you know, until you're ready."

He hugs her tightly in return and plants a kiss on her cheek.

"I know," he says confidently, "_thank you_."

_**five**_

She wears a white dress when she marries Joanne and Collins can't help but to tease her mercilessly about it.

"You know what that symbolizes, right?" he asks the first time she shows him the gown, and he snorts when she mock glares at him and pointedly says, "its _tradition, _you idiot."

"Yeah, nothing like a good old-fashioned traditional lesbian wedding," he laughs and she flings one of Joanne's decorative couch pillows at his head.

"Seriously, how do I look?"

He makes a big show of looking her up and down and then twirls his finger in the air, making the universal symbol for _turn around_. She rolls her eyes but obliges him, raising her arms into the air and dramatically turning a large circle in the middle of her living room.

He takes his time carefully scrutinizing the whole picture, then waits until she's facing him again to smile and tell her sincerely, "you look beautiful."

She beams at his compliment, but then bites at her lower lip as she studies herself in the mirror.

"But is it going to make her want to rip it off me on our wedding night?"

"Ew," he says pointedly.

She gives him a wicked grin. "Oh, but I didn't even tell you about the lingerie I bought especially for this occasion."

Collins makes an elaborate disgusted face and childishly plugs his ears with his fingers, making her laugh.

"What you all do in the privacy of your own apartment is your own business, but I don't want to hear about no lesbian sex," he teases, "that shit's just unnatural."

That statement earns him another pillow to the head and he's all set to keep going when they hear the distinct sound of the front door unlocking and they both freeze.

"She's supposed to be at work!" Maureen shouts at him in a panic. "She can't see the dress yet. Stall her!"

She runs off toward the bedroom, leaving him alone as Joanne comes through the door.

"Maureen?" she calls as she puts down the numerous bags she's holding, "I took off early and figured we could go grab some lunch somewhere and talk about wedding plans…oh."

She rounds the corner into the living room and stops short when she spots Collins.

"Hey!" she says, "what's going on?"

"Oh," Collins tells her, "just hanging out."

Joanne's eyes narrow suspiciously, and then light up.

"She was going to go dress shopping today. She found one, didn't she?"

_Goddamned women's intuition_ Collins thinks before lying very deliberately to Joanne's face. "No."

Unfortunately, she just looks amused.

"You're awful at this."

He nods in agreement as she strides off toward the bedroom. He hears Maureen's shriek of surprise and hangs around awkwardly until he hears an unidentified moan that causes him to make a beeline for the door.

"I'll just let myself out, guys," he says to absolutely no one.


End file.
